


Virago

by glamaphonic



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: 100 Days of Color, Canon Character of Color, Character Study, F/M, Family, Female Character of Color, Female Friendship, Gen, Interracial Relationship, POV Character of Color, POV Female Character, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-23
Updated: 2010-03-23
Packaged: 2017-10-08 06:18:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glamaphonic/pseuds/glamaphonic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>17 facts about Nyota Uhura.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Virago

**i. When Nyota is barely more than a baby, she loses her father to the stars.**

There is no great battle, no first contact gone wrong, no heroic sacrifice. It is merely one of the common-uncommon mysteries of the galaxy. Alhamisi is leading an away party that simply…disappears. No bodies are found; the incident is not repeated. If anyone knows anything beyond that, they are not at liberty to share it with M'Umbha Uhura, widow or not.

Nyota is old enough to remember him, but young enough not to be angry and not to fear. The allure of following in his footsteps does not fade from her bright eyes. Still, M'Umbha never directly tells Nyota: don't dream so far, don't cast eyes upward, don't leave. Her little voice rings with steely determination beyond her years. It is already clear that telling her that she cannot do something will never be perceived as anything but an invitation to be proven wrong.

 

**ii. Languages come naturally to Nyota from the beginning.**

Initially it isn't something at which she tries. Her interest in the scientific side of languages—in examining their structures and how they develop, what makes them work the way that they do—does not come until she is a teenager.

Before that it is simply that she loves to talk. Doing so in as many different manners as possible seems both expedient and fun. She is an early speaker, and she moves on quickly from her first languages, English and Swahili. She is conversant in six Terran languages before she's thirteen, and it is then that she turns her attention to tongues from off-planet. She starts with the other founders of the Federation because that seems the most logical way to begin sampling such a monumental wealth of knowledge. Of Andorian, Tellarite, and Vulcan, Vulcan is the hardest for her and as such is her favorite.

 

**iii. Nyota is, without question, a linguistic savant, but she tests exceptionally in mathematics as well.**

Her mother, a career academic, revels in these talents and unfailingly encourages Nyota towards their pursuit. She is granted acceptance into the Nairobi Institute of Advanced Mathematics when she is ten and spends the next four years there.

 

**iv. Her childhood dream is to join Starfleet.**

It is not unexpected and throughout elementary school she is convinced that she will serve on a starship, fly off through the stars, have adventures, and ultimately, triumphantly, find her long lost father. She asks for model ships and sundry paraphernalia at every opportunity and rules over each game of pretend as a dashing, brave captain. Eventually, she drifts away from these dreams. She grows and her interests expand and she gradually dismisses them as those of a child when she is, of course, becoming an adult.

By high school, she looks back on it as no different than her friend Tiana's one time dream of being a superhero. Her attention turns towards academia instead, following her intellectual talents in that direction seems much less whimsical than letting them lead her to military school and Nyota is nothing if not pragmatic. She decides to teach and some adventurous corner of her heart still holds onto the outside possibility of doing work in diplomacy.

 

**v. She's always been beautiful.**

Nyota progresses from beautiful child to beautiful adolescent to beautiful adult with no awkward in-between.

At twelve, she gets conceited when two-thirds of her eighth grade class wants her to be their best friend, their girlfriend, or both. By sixteen, she's resentful in the wake of clubs, parties, and older boys and girls who all want to use her after one fashion or another. She longs to be taken seriously, respected instead of desired. By nineteen, she's abandoned the binary and decided to demand either or both at her leisure, to take what she wants when she wants it and reject what she doesn't.

It's not as easy as that, and the process is certainly much lengthier than the decision. Nevertheless, Nyota learns to push—others in addition to herself. She wants to care less about what people think. But that desire doesn't work well in concert with her need to make everyone see the things that she holds in most esteem about herself.

Still, it's a mindset that helps her survive. It helps her survive being brilliant and ambitious and unwilling to hide it. It helps her survive being an attractive woman from the United States of Africa in a world that's neither as post-gender or post-national as it thinks it is; a world where the distribution of power still tilts in the favor of men and where the "amalgamated" planetary culture they project to the rest of the galaxy is overwhelmingly North American. And perhaps most importantly, it helps her survive her own expectations and standards which grow more and more lofty every day.

 

**vi. Nyota blazes through a double major in Linguistics and Applied Mathematics with a minor in Political Science in three years.**

It's the hardest thing she's ever done at that point in her life.

She admits it to no one.

 

**vii. The summer after undergrad, she interns at the Federation Embassy in San Francisco.**

Later, she wonders if it was a calculated decision on the part of her subconscious, one made for reasons other than that it is one of the most important locations on the planet. Within two weeks it's clear that the intern coordinator will be delighted to offer her a permanent job if she wants it. Nyota spends two and a half months doing administrative work, learning the way the embassy works beyond the documented protocols she's already committed to memory, and trying to make her decision.

She combs through the benefits and disadvantages of her shortlisted grad schools—two back home, one in the US, the last in Tokyo—and weighs them against the work she's done at the embassy and the promise of the work she'll be able to do. The thought of faraway consulates and frequent trips off-planet excites her, but there's an edge to it, a ring of hesitance in the back of her mind that feels like disappointment. It's silly because she can't possibly be disappointed with a career that she hasn't even taken up yet. When she leans towards grad school it feels safer, more planned, but not really any better.

At night, she dreams childish dreams.

Five days before she's meant to leave, she gets on a transport and tells herself she's saying goodbye to the city that she hasn't seen nearly as much of as she would like. She's not surprised when she ends up at the Presidio. There's a gift shop on the edge of the campus and she goes in to look at the t-shirts and tacky souvenirs. Everything from salt-shakers to flower vases comes in the shape of a starship. She plucks at a belt buckle where it swings on its hook and thinks "Constitution class." The lingering bit of old knowledge jolts her and she goes back out into the brisk afternoon.

She sits the Starfleet entrance exam the next day.

 

**viii. After Nyota enlists, M'Umbha doesn't speak to her for three days.**

She crashes with Tiana, who is clearly as shocked and confused as M'Umbha, but has the good sense not to say so. Nyota offers no explanations. When she and her mother finally do talk, they argue. Nyota has had seventy-two hours to get self-righteous and judgmental; more time than she needs.

Her mother rails at her about juvenile lack of forethought and throwing away years of work on a whim. Nyota counters with accusations of a lifetime of being controlling and afraid. It's years before they take back a few of the things that they say. But the primary conflict is resolved before Nyota gets on the shuttle back to San Francisco.

She would do great at grad school and she would do great at the embassy. She's prepared for both and knows the extent of what will be required of her. What waits for her after Starfleet Academy is inherently unknown. Yes, a ship and a posting, exploration, but the whole of the galaxy cannot be planned for or accurately estimated beforehand. That makes it dangerous, but it also makes it difficult, which in turn makes it exactly what Nyota wants.

She doesn't know if her mother will ever understand, but M'Umbha has no choice but to accept it. It's not her life to live.

 

**ix. Nyota strictly regiments her schedule when she is at the Academy.**

She slots in classes, labs, study groups, tutoring sessions, independent study, chorale, linguistics club, calls home, downtime with friends, and downtime alone. As has always been her wont, she throws herself fully into every single thing, work or play, with the same dedication, determination, and implacable drive.

Her friends sometimes joke that she even schedules masturbation. She always replies, "And you don't?" with feigned confusion and never tells them whether she's entirely kidding or not.

M'Umbha has always said that Nyota perpetually wants more, always wants to go farther, always wants to push harder. She worries, like mothers do, that Nyota doesn't know where to draw the line. That she doesn't know where to pull back and stop and be satisfied.

As much as Nyota protests otherwise, it's not an irrational fear and she never does learn.

 

**x. Spock is one of those times where Nyota goes too far.**

It's not a secret among her friends that she finds him attractive. It's more of a joke than anything else—an odd eccentricity of Nyota's, to be attracted to a robot. There's always been something a little distant about Nyota, as charismatic and personable as she is. It is as if she holds off just a bit, maintaining one last insurmountable wall between herself and the rest of the world. But even with that aura of private mystery, no one for a second believes that she, of all people, would risk so much for such frivolous reasons. It's not as though she doesn't get her itches scratched elsewhere on demand; it's not as though she's lonely.

What everyone but Nyota fails to understand is that she doesn't just find him appealing or attractive. There is something primal, something deeper that tugs at her. He is a perfect storm of traits that make him completely irresistible.

He doesn't even look at her twice until she's proven herself intellectually exceptional. She's never met a person as brilliant as he is. His way of communicating is both perfectly direct and perfectly suited to obfuscating everything about him. Wringing a conversation out of him is more complicated than any problem set.

He challenges her.

Spock doesn't try to make her hold back or wait or stay with the rest of the class. He doesn't question her conviction in the extent of her abilities. It is only ever the simplest of exchanges between them. She declares: I can do it. He responds: then do it. Nyota figures it's only natural that no one understands her desire for achievement quite like a Vulcan considered a genius even by his people's standards; a Vulcan who rejected the most prestigious institute on his planet in order to do something no one had ever done before instead. She wonders both what he was trying to prove and what he thinks _she's_ trying prove.

Early on, once she's passed his class with flying colors, once she's convinced him—through a long campaign of carefully constructed arguments and dutifully listed qualifications—to take her on as his teaching assistant, she thinks that she can imagine loving him.

Later, she's found out that he's kind and gentle, wickedly funny once you understand his humor and know to look for it, and deeply, profoundly passionate. She's found out about his hurts and hopes. She's inferred ones that are impossible for him to acknowledge.

Later, she can't imagine not loving him.

 

**xi. For many years afterward, people wonder how she ended up in an semi-illicit teacher-student relationship with a Vulcan.**

"Easier than you'd think," is always her answer.

She's spent her entire life making sure she gets what she wants, and logic, properly applied, can be used to rationalize anything.

 

**xii. She wants the Enterprise because it's the best, full stop.**

There's really not more to it than that. For Nyota, there doesn't have to be.

 

**xiii. Nyota and Gaila aren't particularly close.**

They're friendly, but she doesn't know that they're friends. It's nothing personal and there's certainly no animosity there. There is a natural camaraderie that comes with shared space and circumstances, even if they both spend limited time in their room. A bond is formed after quiet all-nighters during finals and the rare not-so-quiet nights when they both pretend they don't hear angry sobs, miserable sniffling, and other anguished sounds caused by things they never talk about.

It's mostly that they're into different things and hang out with different people. Gaila likes nightclubs and bright lights and dancing with sweat-slicked strangers in the dark. Nyota likes bars just this side of seedy, doing shots with huge groups of friends, and swaying her hips just so to music that can barely be heard over the bawdy laughter and conversation.

They're each other's call, if such a thing is necessary. (It rarely is.) They smile when they see each other and usually mean it. They have things that annoy them about each other too, but that neither of them ever quite changes. Gaila brings guys back to the room without warning and borrows Nyota's shoes without asking. Nyota too easily assumes that Gaila will cover for her when she misses curfew and sings way too loudly when she sneaks in at 5AM, boots in her hand, hair undone, and clothes slightly rumpled. They never have a prolonged fight about any of it. It just doesn't seem worth the risk to the peaceful, if apathetic, coexistence they've struck up.

It's not until right after Nero—when they meet in their dorm room entirely by chance, when Nyota realizes that she had no idea whether Gaila was even still alive, when she clings to her and neither of them can hold off the tears but can't find it in them to be embarrassed—that Nyota thinks, close or not, they probably are friends after all.

 

**xiv. The thing Nyota most dislikes about Jim Kirk is the way that he treats everything like it's just another part of some big game that he's playing.**

She understands that he doesn't really believe that, that most things matter far more to him than he's willing to let on and that he's very capable besides. This all only makes it worse. She could forgive a fool for being foolish, but she cannot understand or abide a person of intelligence and ability purposefully undermining their own gravitas. Sometimes, she's jealous that he can get away with it, that because of who and what he is people will have faith in him, respect him, and take him seriously anyway. Most times, she just wants to give him a strong right hook.

She extends her trust in his abilities during the disastrous emergency on Vulcan, but it takes months into the five-year mission before she begins to think that maybe the Admiralty didn't make the absolute worst mistake possible when they made him captain.

It only takes weeks for her to like him, though, and he surprises her by having the grace not to be smug about it.

 

**xv. Nyota doesn't count the Battle of Vulcan and the business with Nero as their first mission.**

It's how they all came together. It's why Starfleet Command thinks that they've proven themselves. But she cannot consider it a mission. It cannot be a simple case of open, file, and close report.

It is an atrocity, a tragedy, one that will follow them for the rest of their lives and that has literally changed the face of the galaxy. Words have meaning and she refuses to bind the thoughtless slaughter, the near-eradication, of an entire people and every other species on their planet to something so mundane and small as that.

If it _was_ a mission, how could any of them ever live with how spectacularly they failed?

 

**xvi. She doesn't offer to go with Spock and he doesn't ask her to.**

This, more than anything else, reinforces for her how much she loves him. But they don't say any goodbyes either. Initially, she thinks it's absurd on both their parts. Time towards commencement ticks down and he gives her reminders to send the routing information for her personal console on the Enterprise to his padd once she's aboard since he won't be able to access it after he relinquishes his commission.

They don't say that it's over or that it will be. They carry on as if five years apart just to start with won't mean a thing, as if once those five years are over he will conveniently be finished helping to build a new home for his race. Then she remembers that Vulcan spouses routinely live apart for years at a time. Nyota wonders if that's what he's heading towards with his long looks and pregnant silences. She wants to think that's a little bit absurd too, but instead frightens herself with the knowledge that if he asked her to marry him, she'd say yes.

His other self's intervention is a boon. She'd be willing to call it a miracle. But the 'yes' to that unasked question still sits in the back of her mind.

By the time she's finally able to give her answer, she's not afraid anymore, though Spock refuses to admit whether he knew or if that's why he waited.

 

**xvii. Nyota doesn't regret her decision to join Starfleet.**

In the course of her career, she sees things both unfathomably amazing and unthinkably horrifying. She nearly dies countless times and nearly loses people most important to her countless others. She saves a lot of lives and takes a few.

It's never easy.

She is sure that she loves well and fully, Spock and the rest of her found family too. She's not sure if she laughs more than she cries or if there are more victories without caveat than sacrifices and defeats.

But she travels to disparate corners of the galaxy, experiences cultures previously beyond her imagination, and she knows for a fact that there's never really been anywhere else she'd rather be.


End file.
